Once wide enough for rituals around a ceremonial platform, Ampato mountain's avalanche-narrowed summit now only admits visitors single file. To the Inca, Ampato was sacred, a god who brought life-giving water and good harvests. As a god, the mountain claimed the highest tribute—an Inca mummy and other burial sites have been found here. (Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Peru's Ice Maidens," June 1996, National Geographic magazine)
